[2011.12.21] CHEN KUN AND MAVIS FAN UNITE TO FEND OFF "DEMON"

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The Tsui Hark directed first 3D Chinese wuxia film FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE (LUNG MOON FEI GAP) was based on the 1992 film NEW DRAGON GATE INN (SUN LUNG MOON HAT JANG) and starred Jet Li (Lee Nin Kit), Zhou Xun, Chen Kun, Chris Lee Yuchun and Mavis Fan Hiu Huen.  The cast aside from Kit Jai did not have any martial art background.  With the 3D production, the difficulties could be imagined.  No wonder Chen Kun described this film as the toughest in his ten year film career.

Chen Kun and Fan Hiu Huen earlier met reporters together.  When talking about the film, Chen Kun admitted, "This was the toughest film in my ten year career.  The weather was the coldest, the condition was the worst, the director was the most demonic, the character was the hardest to play.  With the 3D effects, action had to be complete and couldn't be edited.  (Would you make the sequel?)  If it would be made then I would, after all my relationship with Old Master is great."  Fan Hiu Huen said that although the film was shot under horrible weather, everyone was very united and very close.  They even formed the Dragon Gate Alumni Association.

Since the shoot was so tough, was he injured?  Chen Kun said, "Anyone who wasn't injured seemed to not have been a part of this film.  Thus everyone more or less was injured.  I fell from a horse."  Fan Hiu Huen was not injured.  She said, "I played a very fragile woman and didn't need to fight too much."  However due to the desert shoot, sandstorm occurred nearby.  With the cement and corn starch used to create the effect, her eyes, skins and airways all suffered.  She said, "Everyday when I got back and washed my face it was like sanding paste.  Everyday I needed facial therapy.  When delivering my lines I would keep eating sand, but the director did not yell cut and demanded for the performance to continue.  The performance went from sound to silence."

Chen Kun in the film had fight scenes with everyone, the most memorable of which of course was the fight with "Kung Fu Emperor" Kit Jai because Kit Jai fought the best.  With a kung fu new comer like him, even if Kit Jai was better he still had frequent bad takes.  Chen Kun said, "Although Brother Kit was the Kung Fu Emperor, I took 30 takes and he still kept my company."  Later he apologized to Brother Kit.  Speaking of the romantic scenes in the film, Fan Hiu Huen advertised, "The romantic scenes are very exciting, with real and fake ones and everyone has a motive.  it's not just relationships between men and women, but a little same sex relationship.  Because women in the martial art world would often wear a male disguise, ambiguous identities were very normal."  Chen Kun said that everyone's face was filled with frost in the severe weather.  Their faces were so frozen that they could not move.  Thus emotional scenes were particularly painful.